Instant replay overturns key in Tigers' win over Angels

Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera sits on third after being called out during the third inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels in Detroit on Saturday. The play was overturned on a replay.
CARLOS OSORIO — The Associated Press

Miguel Cabrera was initially called out when he tried to take an extra base in the third inning, testing the arm of Mike Trout in center field. Replays showed Cabrera — who’d reached on an error, when Brennan Boesch dropped his fly ball — slid in to third base before the tag. One batter later, Cabrera trotted home on Austin Jackson’s MLB-best fourth sacrifice fly.

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“I’ve said it since spring training — this guy’s baseball IQ is high. He gave kind of a false-looking break, like he was going to just take a few steps and just go back to second. I guess you would call it a deke, and then he picked right back up and kept going,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said of Cabrera

“He understands the game, more than just hit the ball, field the ball, throw the ball. He understands the intricacies of the game, what goes through a player’s mind when they’re fielding the ball, when he’s on base, or what the pitcher’s thinking when he’s at the plate.”

The second replay was harder to deal with initially.

In the bottom of the fourth, Ian Stewart was called out trying to steal second, and both teams trotted off the field, before manager Mike Scioscia challenged the call. It, too, was overturned, continuing the inning.

“That’s something that’s completely new. When it goes to replay, typically it’s going to be overturned, because they have people looking at it. The challenge is important, so for them to use it, you know they’re probably going to be right,” Scherzer said.

“So, for me, I had to take the mentality that it was going to be overturned, and I had to get (Erick) Aybar out. So I was sitting there thinking 3-1 count, second and third, two outs, going through the whole scenario — ‘What do I want to do? What do I want to do?’ Taking warm-up pitches to make sure that my arm was at 100 percent. I think it was a 3-1 ballgame at that point, so that was a very important at-bat.

“Even though it was something new, I thought I took a good mentality of how to combat that.”

Scherzer stayed out on the field while the replay was going on, then after the initial call was overturned, he struck out Aybar to end the inning, making the point moot.

“I didn’t go in the dugout. I did not want to give myself a chance to relax,” Scherzer said. “I wanted to stay focused and stay on there. I did not want to come down an inch mentally. I had to sit there and say ‘No, this is going to happen.’ The Aybar at-bat’s going to finish out. I need to come with the right mentality and focus to do that, because it was a huge at-bat in the game.”

It was a critical juncture, as the Tigers led just 3-1 at the point, and the potential tying run was in scoring position with the stolen base.

“He pitched well the whole game, but that was kind of the turning point in the game, I think, in terms of Max’s outing,” Ausmus said. “That had the potential to be a game-changing inning, when you have second and third. A base hit now scores two.